


Welcome To The Black Parade

by JustAnotherGhostwriter



Category: Animorphs - Katherine A. Applegate
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, Gen, Jake's parents make a cameo, Jake-centric, post-war fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-13
Updated: 2013-09-13
Packaged: 2017-12-26 11:02:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,415
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/965184
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JustAnotherGhostwriter/pseuds/JustAnotherGhostwriter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They say Jake is the only Berenson who was a part of the war that survived. </p><p>Just because he's breathing, doesn't mean he didn't die. </p><p>Character-study-ish fic focusing on post-war Jake based on Welcome to the Black Parade by My Chemical Romance.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Welcome To The Black Parade

**Author's Note:**

> I cannot tell you how long I’ve wanted to write this. Jake Jam over on Tumblr gave me the excuse. But please don’t be fooled: it’s a hastily written, ‘I should be doing essays’, self-indulgent little songfic that was written purely for my own enjoyment. The lyrics are from ‘Welcome to the Black Parade’ by My Chemical Romance, the band my sister loves more than she loves me. If you’re bored/brave enough to read this… sorry? 
> 
> Once again: you're more than welcome to use this/rework this etc in any way. Go wild. 
> 
> The reply Jake gives Harvey is a quote taken (with permission and so much gratitude) from the stunning fic "Live Learned" by Zelos, found on this site. 
> 
> [Part of the Great Fic Dump From Tumblr of 2013]

_When I was a young boy_

In hindsight, everything changes. Moments that were inconsequential, normal, just more memories set to the ticking of a clock stand out like gunshots when looked back on. Jake can remember turning thirteen and arguing with his parents that he was old enough to learn to drive. _Tom_ had started learning when he’d turned thirteen, along the dusty back roads and the quiet streets of the dead-beat town Grandma and Grandpa stayed in. Jake wanted that right of passage, too. But Dad was busier with his job and the days of visiting Grandma and Grandpa all the time were over; they’d trickled by slowly, quietly and Jake only noticed they were leaving when they were already gone. He was stubborn, of course. He made his arguments, plead his pleas, promised and even blackmailed a little. But the answer was always “No, Jake.” Tom went out driving all the time, smirking at Jake over his shoulder because he _knew_ how much it chafed. “You’re too young,” his mother tried to console him. “Tom only started learning just before he turned fourteen, and even then it was a bit of a mistake. Just wait, Jake. Be patient. You’re still so young.” Thirteen was _not_ young, in Jake’s eyes. He was a proper teenager steadily on his way to high school. He was old enough for responsibility, now. And then came the day that Tom played a trick on him, giving him the keys to the car and solemnly saying he’d talked Dad around to letting Jake learn to drive. Tom had howled with laughter when Jake’s very confused father finally understood and explained to Jake that no such agreement had been made. Once again, Jake was told he was too young. The car keys were taken away.

Exactly two months later, he was handed the fate of the world.

Two months and five days later, he realized his parents had been right: he was too young.

_He said, “Son when you grow up, would you be the saviour of the broken, the beaten and the damned?”_

Marco had been the one to make the comment. They’d been walking to school, stumbling in their exhaustion, both caught up in the previous night’s battle and the early morning’s nightmares. Marco had been the one to break the silence.

“It’s amazing how many years can pass in the space of six-hundred-and-seventy-odd days.”

He was right, of course. They’d started out thirteen and had turned middle-aged before their time. They’d had to grow up; there was no other choice. And as the days dragged and made Jake so many years older, a corner of his heart started to secretly hate Elfangor for his decision. He’d told the five of them they’d have to save the world. Six children against an army. And, somehow, he’d been thrust to the front of the pack. Somehow, they all wanted him to be the one giving orders.

It was scary. It was frustrating. It was hell. But it was doable: Jake could save the captured, the oppressed and those who had no idea they were inches away from slavery. What he could not do was save the _whole_ world. And that was what Elfangor had asked: save the entire earth, Jake. Everybody. Including the five other too-old children who are your soldiers.

He could save the rest of the earth, he was sure. But Tobias, who had been tortured for hours; completely broken because of Jake’s plan? Ax, who was torn between loyalties, forced to obey a human while his heart belonged to his people? Marco, who had stopped trying to get out and who had curled into his ruthlessness like a second skin because Jake needed a tactician? Cassie, who broke a little inside every time she was forced to kill during the missions he led? Rachel, who was freefalling down a path to damnation, all because she was turning into the person he needed to be?

Jake would never save the world.

_He said, “Will you defeat them; your demons?”_

Dictionaries lie. Things can not be defined on paper.

He’d always painted the Yeerks as pure evil. Monsters, demons, fiends, barbarians. He’d tried, for a while, to listen when Cassie talked about morality and how Yeerks were not inherently evil. And then he’d stopped listening. Because it was easier. Because if he wanted to be able to keep leading them, if he wanted to keep himself from simply breaking down, he’d have to paint the Yeerks collectively black so his actions and orders could be justified.

Jake the Yeerk-Killer.

His biggest demon is himself.

_Sometimes I get the feeling, she’s watching over me, and other times I feel like I should go_

They are good guys, the two men who work the afternoon and night shifts at the graveyard. He’d spoken to them once each; the very first time he’d come and they’d been on duty. He didn’t have to explain much - they watched TV and read the news. He had been willing to bribe them for their silence, but both of them agreed to keep silent about his visits even without his promise of compensation. He isn’t egotistical enough to think it’s because he was some famous, apparently hot-shot war hero. They’ve just seen enough of death to let him in and then forget he is there.

They even warn him when Naomi is visiting, so he can turn around before he has to see her. His aunt says she understands, and he doesn’t know which is worse: that she’s lying, or that she’s telling the truth.

Jake doesn’t talk to Rachel’s monument. There’s nothing to talk to there but stone. He wonders, sometimes, what Tobias did with the ashes. Hopes Tobias let them go so Rachel would forever be free and fierce and strong, carried along by eternal breezes. And then he always feels bad, because he shouldn’t get to hope things like that.

He goes over their last conversation in his head; a stuck record playing something he could say in his sleep (he sometimes screams it, his parents told him) but that he still hopes holds an answer. He lets himself remember Rachel and him as kids, and wishes he’d done something to say sorry when he’d had the chance.

Sorry I didn’t help you. Sorry I let you spiral into somebody you couldn’t run from. Sorry I turned you from family to my best lieutenant.

Sometimes, he finds something good to hold onto. The time they ganged together against the other cousins to win a snowball fight. The time they broke her mom’s vase and they managed to convince her it was a stray raccoon. The times she gave an older boy on Jake’s primary school basketball team hell because he picked on Jake.

Sometimes he manages to convince himself that she knew what she was getting into. That she’d meant what she’d said. That she wouldn’t want him to blame himself. That her ‘I love you’ was meant for him, too. Sometimes he imagines her on the wind; wicked and always ready to go and be fierce and untamable.

And other times he remembers the look on her face just before she died; a look he’s so sure was regret and fear. Sometimes he imagines her pleading for him to take back his order, pleading that she doesn’t want to die. Sometimes he imagines what her life could have been like. Her and Tobias. Her and Cassie. The other Animorph the media would have loved. Helping her sisters grow up. Saving herself from herself.

On those days, he never makes it to the sunset. He always has to drive away from the hatred and scorn radiating from the empty grave.

(He can never run far enough.)

_And through it all, the rise and fall, the bodies in the street_

There is a group of people who agree with Visser Three’s attorney: he is a war criminal. Jake the Yeerk-Killer. They have a website and a thin magazine that comes out once a month.

Marco cancelled his subscription.

In one of the earlier issues, though, there had been an article. What would it have looked like, it said, if all the Yeerks Big Jake had killed were bodies lining the streets? Would more stupid humans understand the damnable deed he’d done? Because, obviously, thinking of floating slugs in space was not an image that would sink in to humanity’s brain. No, they needed pictures like they’d been shown from their own wars. Mass graves. Corpses left to rot in the gutters of their home cities. Somebody had created a virtual image of seventeen thousand plus dead bodies littering the streets of his hometown. They all had their eyes open; glassy and dead and haunting.

There was an outcry - unsafe media, kids could see it, he was sure Marco had something to do with it - and the magazine copies got taken off the shelves immediately.

His copy is at the back of his closet. He can’t explain to himself why he keeps it, much less why he looks at that picture almost daily.

What he does know is that it’s just as easy to conjure up another image when he closes his eyes. Seventeen thousand bodies in the streets of his hometown, walking, talking, breathing, eating, sleeping… all dead. Seventeen thousand plus slaves. Meat puppets. Corpses that stare with glassy, dead, haunting eyes.

Somedays he allows himself to believe that he made the right call and he rises to put the magazine at the back of his closet.

Other days he falls into space with the seventeen thousand plus helpless beings and tacks the picture from the magazine to his wall.

_And when you’re gone we want you all to know we’ll carry on, we’ll carry on_

“I lost my eldest daughter, but that does not mean I am going to sit down or… or… break down. I will carry on in her memory. I will do this for the Hork-Bajir, but also for Rachel.”

He records his aunt’s speech and plays it to himself on days when it’s pathetically difficult to roll out of bed. There’s nothing important to do with his life, really. There’s nobody he has to put on a front for when he’s behind closed doors. Not since he moved out of his parents’ house. Just him. Marco offered to get him a butler, but the thought of having another person in his house who he’d watch and who would watch him and who he’d have to order around…

There is genuinely nobody who will judge him if he just… cracks. He won’t do the Hollywood breakdown - that would give him no peace, anyway - but he’ll just stay in bed. Just catch up on the sleep he’s missed because of the war and because of the nightmares. And, sure, he’ll never really catch up because the nightmares will never really let him sleep but if his brain thinks he needs to be punished…

Nobody knows you like yourself, right?

He thinks of Marco, the big star, of Cassie, in government and in love, of his cousins who spend every third week at their dad’s new house that’s located just a few streets from their house, of his aunt and the Hork-Bajir, of Ax the Andalite Prince. He thinks of Tobias the hawk. No ties left to humanity. He thinks of himself, but stops quickly because…

Rachel would want them to carry on.

It’s the only reason he forces himself to function. He owes her that much, at the very least.

_And though you’re dead and gone believe me, your memory will carry on_

After Cassie’s book draws attention to the Forgotten Animorphs, Jordan decides to write a book honouring her big sister. She writes most of it from her perspective, asking her parents for details they can bring themselves to give, Marco for some funny moments, Cassie for her insights as Rachel’s very best friend. He didn’t think Jordan would come to him, but she does. Not face-to-face, but by phone. He’s so surprised by her request that he stumbles through his first refusal. Jordan asks again. And then a third time. And he has to say yes to her.

He intends to write a general overview of Rachel and give one opinion paragraph Jordan can use for quotes.

He ends up dropping off thirty-seven pages.

Jordan calls him that evening, and all she can say is his name as she sobs.

The book is a huge hit, and once again everybody remembers Rachel Berenson. He doesn’t read the book; he doesn’t have to. He makes himself remember Rachel as often as possible. Partially because the way it hurts keeps him grounded in reality and not back in the place of memories. Partially because, fuck, he will do what he can to keep her alive.

_And in my heart, I can’t contain it_

“When was the last time you exploded?”

Jake looks at Marco with a wearily raised eyebrow. “I’m not hooking up with anybody, Marco.”

“Not like that. Jeez, no wonder you’re single.”

Jake doesn’t bite. He never does, any more. He just turns back to the TV and pretends to watch. Pretends it’s normal. Pretends he really likes hanging out with Marco again. Like he doesn’t want to run from the building and just find an empty room where he can focus on life after the big chunk that was the war phase of his life.

“Jake, I’m being serious.”

He looks at his best friend. Only friend. “What?”

“When was the last time you… really let rip with an emotion? Anger. Happiness. Excitement. Frustration. Sadness. Anything. Just let it… boil over. Screamed it out to the heavens because you just… couldn’t keep it in any more?”

Jake turns back to the TV. “You’ve been watching too many soapies again.”

“Excuse you. I’ve been _writing_ them. And _starring_ in them.” There’s a long silence, and Marco is watching him but Jake cannot meet his eyes. “Come on, Fearless Leader, wh-”

It claws and rolls and rips at his insides, and he cannot be in that room any more. But he has to be. He has to be normal. He swallows it down. Doesn’t even notice that Marco cut himself off and is now watching him with a tight expression.

“Have you seen this one?” Jake’s voice is steady. “It’s about the preacher’s daughter…”

“All good stories start with that tagline.” Marco’s jibe is a few beats too late and a few shades to perky.

Neither of them comment. The world carries on.

_A world that sends you reeling from decimated dreams_

He’d gone to Cassie’s house a year after the war had ended. He’d been struggling to breathe and had trembled as though caught in a gale but he’d made himself go over. He’d wanted to grab onto something so he could pull himself out of the war and into the present. The present, where he could still do the things he’d promised himself all those nights he’d been unable to fall asleep.

He would finish high school. Get a degree. Carry on trying to play basketball. He’d get a job. He’d help the world. He’d lay low. He’d marry Cassie. Love her. Start a family with her. He’d remember the past, not live it.

And then he’d found himself staring at the barn and the memories had blinded him. His knees had collapsed. He’d remembered the conclusion he’d come to when he’d agreed to lead the Animorphs under Eva’s eternal gaze. The conclusion he’d fought vainly with everything in his heart, when it was the end and he knew he could do nothing to stop it.

He was never getting out of the war. There was no after.

He’d gotten straight back into the cab and hadn’t even called her.

_Your misery and hate will kill us all_

Teaching the classes about morphing always makes his tongue bleed.

He’s being paid to teach them what to do; how to use the powers for good. He’s teaching them about going into battle, but battle that they can win. Battle they can anticipate. Battle they’ll have to fight but never to plan.

They are just the grunts.

But sometimes, he wants to tell them warnings that will do them no good and so much harm. Sometimes he wants to warn them what war of any kind will do to a person. Sometimes he wants to shake them all and tell them to fucking run, because they are listening to the wrong person.

He bites his tongue until it bleeds so he will not simply start shouting that if they want to _live_ they should not be anything like him.

_So paint it black and take it back_

There are, of course, also those who hate the Yeerks with a hatred that can not be explained. A lot of them are freed Controllers, or at least family of Controllers. They have a website too. And they’d collectively published a book that the UN had banned because it was, essentially, nothing but hate-speech and propaganda.

Jake bought a copy. He read it. Highlighted some passages. Read them when he needed to.

It was easier to paint all the Yeerks as evil. Easier to forget the humanity and morals Cassie preached. It was easier to make them the monsters and the demons, because then his actions could be justified. Then not calling Cassie would be justified. Not going to see his family would be justified. Blowing off Marco would be justified. Killing his brother and his cousin would be…

It was so much easier, when there was a devil to blame that was not himself.

_Defiant to the end we hear the call to carry on_

He’d had quite a few conversations with Ax that centered around humanity’s stupidity. Ax had commented, in a number of different ways, on the tendency humans had to fling themselves into a fight they knew they could not win. Sometimes, the Andalite had been frustrated. Other times he had been impressed. Slowly but surely, it had seemed to sink in and meld with his natural optimism, until he was ready to deny reality as much as the other five were.

“This is insane,” Marco always used to say. And it was. It always was. It was almost always a suicide mission. It was almost always a certainty that they would die, or at the _very least_ cause minimal damage and annoyance as they always had. And yet, they still went.

Almost all of them had quit, at one stage, but they always came back.

Even when the doubts screamed louder than the dying Hork-Bajir or the trapped humans or the Taxxons being ripped apart, they still stayed. He’d still stayed. He’d still clung to Cassie’s hand and begged her to marry him, when the war was over. He’d still told her he’d be able to find his place in the world again. Even though he’d _known_ as soon as he was leader again that it was all over and he was never getting out.

“This is insane,” Marco always used to say. Perhaps he’d walked on that path too long to return to sanity.

_We’ll carry on_

His parents try to understand, they really do. But it’s a lot to deal with: coming home from work to be ambushed and enslaved in your own head, hearing about a war both your sons fought in secret against each other, living in terror and confusion only to finally be freed to the news your eldest is dead at the command of your youngest. Jake is patient with them; lets them ask questions he’d rather not answer, lets them have days when they can’t quite seem to look him in the eye, pretends for their sake he can’t hear them crying. He lets them use him in their grief; lets them keep him home because they still can’t quite equate what happened to reality and they lost a son, Jake, can’t you understand they _lost a son_?

If he’s being honest with himself, the main reason he moved back home once it was all over was because he was longing to be the child again. At least in his house. He wanted to be hugged and held as he sobbed. He wanted to be forgiven. He wanted his dad to give him advice and take things out of his hands with a firm ruling that he was too young.

He ended up being the pillar. And he couldn’t even blame them for needing him, because he understood. (And he was so, so, sorry.)

They got better slowly. Very slowly. Slower than even Naomi and Jordan and Sara. And then Marco told him the stark truth - he was hindering and not helping - and he bought a house and moved out. Visited once a week. Then once every two weeks. Then once a month. Now he just calls.

Tom is gone. Living with his parents isn’t going to bring him back. It isn’t going to help them learn to live a normal life again. He thinks they understand.

His mom still kisses the mouthpiece of the phone every time he hangs up.

_And though you’re dead and gone, believe me, your memory will carry_

He goes home for what would have been Tom’s birthday. It’s his dad who’s locked himself in the room, refusing to come out. His mom is sad but holding on - he’s her son, everybody always said. Just like Jean - and she carries the conversation when it’s obvious he can’t really speak to his aunts, uncles or cousins. He’s ruined his family - Tom, Rachel, Sadler. It may be Tom’s birthday but there’s a picture of all three of them, large colour photographs, in the middle of the table so he won’t forget.

The first thing he says directly to his aunt is, “Won’t you excuse us for a while?” Naomi looks at him for a long time and then nods, her eyes tight with something he doesn’t want to see. Then Jake gently takes his mother’s hand and leads her upstairs to what was once his bedroom. It’s untouched.

He holds her and she finally cries. It takes a long time (he can’t hold back his own tears) but when she’s finally wrung out and trying to fix her face and hair in his mirror they hear stamping in the passage. And then Naomi and Steve bellowing at each other. Just like Rachel.

Jake almost smiles.

His mother smiles when his father, clean-shaven, showered and meek, appears in time for dessert.

_On and on, we carry through the fears_

Jake knows Marco still has nightmares, too. He tries to hide it, behind the happiness and the wealth, but the tell-tale signs are still there. Dark circles under his eyes. Mentions of watching crappy late-night television. Furtive glances from his girlfriends. It makes Jake a terrible friend, but he doesn’t ask. Because Marco will just turn the question to him. And he’s had enough talk about therapists and dreams and how to rid himself of the blood his mind will never forget.

It is _another_ mistake he made. He thought the almost ever present terror would stop when the war did. But it, like everything else in those three years that seemed to be a lifetime, stayed on. Terror from the memories. Terror from the nightmares of what could have been. Terror from the imagined conversations with his victims. Terror at the dreams and imaginings that he’s once again in charge and he has to give an order _now_ and the whole world hangs in his hands and his morality is even more shattered than Rachel’s…

Terror that he’ll one day move on. Terror that he’ll find a justification for killing his own blood.

Terror that he’ll let himself start missing the battles.

_Disappointed faces of your peers_

He hasn’t asked, not once, where Tobias is. He doesn’t want to know. A part of him still hopes he’ll wake up one day to some form of animal above his bed, and the last thing he’ll hear is Tobias reaffirming his inability to forget before he finds out if there is a place called heaven that Tom and Rachel could go to. He wishes, sometimes, that Tobias had morphed human one more time. Somehow he thinks the hatred from a human face would have been easier to bear than hatred from the eternal eyes of a hawk.

He hangs out with Marco, but it’s not the same. Marco keeps trying to shove him into the skin of a boy he’ll never be again, or a leader he wants to hand over to the lynch mob. They don’t talk about war tactics any more, but they also don’t talk about superheroes. Their words are empty, a lot of the time. Desperate attempts to fill the silence between them. Because, after everything, they can’t lose each other as pseudo-brothers. They just _can’t_. He still catches Marco’s looks out of the corner of his eye, though, so he knows what Marco isn’t telling him.

Ax showed him little emotion, even when he left. But there was something cold about the handshake, and something final about the way he dropped the ‘Prince’ from Jake’s name as the conversation drew to an end. There was a part of him still able to feel sorry for Ax. Somehow, he seemed to be the one who was always being left disillusioned.

He knows Jordan, especially, wanted more from him. She is older. She understands a lot. Maybe Naomi wanted more, too - he’d never allowed himself to make eye contact long enough to discern that fact. He knows his parents think they need what he’d offered in the beginning. But he can give none of them what they want. And he knows there’s no more Berenson pride directed at him anymore.

Cassie was the easiest to read. The moment when the last bit of _maybe_ that connected her heart to his severed was palpable. Whatever they had still lies in her heart, as dormant as it lies in his. But there’s no way to connect the two any more. He’s not her hero. Not even close.

_Take a look at me ‘cause I could not care at all_

Jake always knew he and Rachel were alike. Before the war reached a peak, it had just been some dormant knowledge that he never really thought about. After she brought it up - called him out on his shit, more like it, - he started to see the similarities everywhere. And perhaps that was why his plan had ended with them dying. Rachel, who he was so alike. Tom, who he had wanted to be since as long as he could remember. Mix them up in a pot of desperation, held in the hands of a little boy who didn’t want to lead but _had_ to and who was in charge and who had to make sure the greater good made it out alive at whatever cost was necessary… Whatever cost. It wasn’t as though he hadn’t considered being a martyr before. Somehow the half-baked acceptance of a true suicide mission mixed with his identification with his wild, beautiful cousin and…

She’d said she knew why he sent her. She hadn’t known all of it.

And sometimes, it’s what he needs to get by. Jake was the Yeerk-Killer. Jake was the one responsible for the death of thousands. Jake couldn’t bring himself to step out of what was and into what is. Rachel, on the other hand, would have told him to get over it and move on. Rachel would have been just as confused and broken inside, but she never would have shown it. Rachel would have faced the cameras with a grin that was almost a snarl and would have given the world the finger.

_“Give me your best shot. I don’t give a fuck.”_

Marco says he’s getting a bit better. Jake can’t bring himself to admit it’s because he’s morphing in a completely different way. Jake should never have survived; Jake cannot survive.

Rachel, on the other hand…

_Do or die, you’ll never make me, because the world will never take my heart_

He still has nightmares of his days of being a Controller. It had been terrifying, but also empowering. He now knew what it was like to have filth in his head. He knew what Tom had to go through every day. He knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that fighting the Yeerks had to continue. He would end them, for what they did. He would never let them make him theirs ever again. He’d die before that happened. He’d kill them before it happened. He may not have wanted to be the leader, but now that he was he would lead them and he would crush the invading species.

He’d thought he was untouchable. Changed by his experience in a way that would help him. He beat Crayak, the eye of his nightmares. Just one more level up. One more victory for Big Jake. It was terrifying, but he could do it. They would not scare him off.

He’s secretly sure Crayak gave up trying to kill him, because he was doing a good enough job of slowly killing himself.

_Go and try, you’ll never break me_

Grandpa G had always said Jake had the same eyes as him. He’d always heard his great grandfather had never left the war.

He didn’t buy a footlocker. He buried all the medals in Tom’s empty grave.

_We want it all, we want to play this part_

Jake generally avoids watching any interviews about the Animorphs on TV. The newspaper articles about them are at least somewhat grounded in fact or relevant news. TV talk shows could go in any direction. And, mostly, they go in directions he does not want to go. Tonight, however, he’s still awake because DC is three hours ahead and he needs something to do. His finger hovers over the button on the remote when Marco’s face appears on screen, but for once he doesn’t skip the channel. His hand stays in mid air, though, still not sure he’s making the right decision to listen in.

Marco is telling some joke that has the host - Jake doesn’t know his name - and the live audience in stitches. It’s a recent story, so Jake listens in, allowing himself to be half amused and half incredulous that his girlfriend is still with him. Or was Marco talking about the _last_ girlfriend?

Before Jake can figure it out, the host’s smile slips into a serious frown in six seconds flat. Jake used to be able to do that. Swallow the emotions. Put on a game face. Smile like you mean it. Now he doesn’t really bother to smile any more.

“So, Marco. Let’s get serious, now.” Marco crosses his legs and folds his arms like an obedient schoolboy, earning a few more laughs. Jake looks and sees the tense set to Marco’s shoulders that belies his act of unconcerned amusement. “You’re a funny man.”

“Thanks,” Marco says with a wide smile. “I try.”

“So how did you end up being the Animorph’s tactician as well?” The host is not to be swayed.

Marco hesitates for a split second before launching into a light, up-beat explanation of his ability to see the straight line between situations. He throws in humour, he throws in innuendos and he gives the audience what they think they want without delving anywhere near the whole truth of the matter.

His explanation is met with another supposedly innocent question: so if he was so good at planning, why was he not leader?

Jake smiles at the same time Marco does. Their smiles share the same bitter edge of a man who knows too much.

Marco explains, in a cheerful voice, that every team needs an array of different people in order for it to function correctly. He explains, in a narrative thick with over exaggerations and jokes, that each Animorph had his or her own role. Cassie, the animal expert, social analyst and moral compass. Ax, the alien and technology expert. Tobias, the ideologist, the thinker, the adaptor. Rachel, the strength, the warrior. He, Marco, as the jester and the tactician.

“And Jake-”

Jake changes channels. He doesn’t want to know.

_I won’t explain or say I’m sorry_

"What was going through your mind when you created the plan for the final battle?"

"Did Rachel know?"

"Was it always the plan to use so much sacrifice as a diversion?"

"Why kill so many, but then spare the Yeerks who were _enslaving_ other species right then?”

"Why spare the Visser?"

"How many people did you kill Jake? Just people here, mind."

"Mister Berenson! Mister Berenson! Won’t you-"

"Jake… Did she… Did Rachel… I mean…"

The words are always too heavy to force out of his mouth. They sink like balls of lead to the pit of his stomach.

"Sorry" explodes. "Sorry" burns him from the inside out. "Sorry" makes it out into the air as smoke; flimsy and fleeting and always hitting his aunt in the back as she walks away. Sorry gets carried to the breeze as a whisper that he knows even a hawk will not hear.

_I’m unashamed, I’m gonna show my scar_

And then there is the part of him that is not appalled or guilty all the time. The part of him that had once been annoyed that the world did not acknowledge all the battles he won. The part of him who remembers the exact thoughts running through his head when he’d flushed over seventeen _thousand_ helpless Yeerks. The part of him who is just like Rachel, who remembers the adrenalin with something other than just distaste. The part of him who sees his name in history books, who remembers sitting beside George Washington, who sees a free Earth and thinks ‘this is partially because of me’…

That part still lives in him. That part rises to the fore when he teaches; makes his words strong and his orders swift. His Fearless Leader Mode, as Marco coined it.

And it hurts to talk about past battles. And it hurts to remember what he’s become. But there’s still a part of him who cannot say sorry for what he did.

_Listen here, because it’s who we are_

“If the Ellimist pulled another voodoo magic trick,” Marco says to him suddenly, five years since the day it all began, “and he transports us back in time to that day… What would you do?”

Jake is silent. He thinks about it all. Thinks about all he did and didn’t do. Thinks about the dead that would still be alive five years in the past.

“I’d… I’d hug Rachel.” He’s unashamed to say it in front of Marco.

Marco’s shoulder brushes against his; an automatic show of comfort. “And then? If we’re all standing in front of the construction site, and it’s just about to happen…?”

“I’m tired of making decisions, Marco,” he says heavily. “I’d put it to a vote.”

There’s a pause while Marco thinks. Reluctantly, Jake does too. He imagines what the conversation would be like. Weighing the pros against the cons. Arguing about what Ax’s vote would be - would he want to be left to die, knowing how it all ends? He thinks of Cassie. He thinks of Tobias, human with the chance to not be so alone. He thinks of Marco, of Peter and Eva and Nora and how things could have worked out, there. He thinks of Tom, alive but enslaved. He thinks of Rachel, burning and fierce but still clinging to light and not falling into darkness.

“I’d…I’d go,” Jake mumbles. And then, vaguely aware his hands are shaking, he feels the need to clarify. “To Elfangor. I’d go and I’d…”

“I know, man,” Marco whispers. “Me, too.”

_I’m just a man; I’m not a hero_

Teaching cannot only take place in a classroom: this much he knows. He’s hesitant when he’s asked to supervise the practical mock battles that they’re starting as “proper” training, but in the end he cannot resist. They still listen to him - hard men and women twice his age and sometimes twice his size. His fears come to light three sessions in; people get a little too excited and the mock battle turns into real danger. Every instinct in him is screaming to morph and help, but he holds himself back. Instead he repeats commands into the leader - Sanders - until Sanders gets his troops out alive. The injuries are morphed away, the offending parties taken in for a stern talking to, the troops dismissed early. Sanders is nowhere to be found.

Jake heads to the bathroom and finds Sanders over a toilet. He’s mildly impressed the man made it that far. He doesn’t lay a finger on Sanders, but he leans against the stall and watches the ceiling, pretending not to notice the sounds of crying mingling with the retching.

When the solider stands up, his face is clean and dry and composed. Jake stops him mid-thank you. He doesn’t deserve thanks.

And then they’re almost at the door and Sanders - David, as irony would have it - turns to him and asks, “How did you do it? How did you end up in those situations and…”

Jake remembers the age ago when Rachel asked him the same question. He gives the same lie. “I didn’t think about it.”

Sanders’ face breaks in horror and understanding. Jake can’t help but clap him on the back once before he leaves.

_Just a boy who had to sing this song_

“Do you think it was really him?”

Jake pauses, one hand curled on the handle of the door. He’s left his car keys in the ‘classroom’ again, but it seems there are still people inside. People who are having conversations they feel they shouldn’t be having: the classroom is the only room on base that is not heavily bugged. He’d… _requested_ it be so. The biggest part of Jake is telling him to either walk in, nod at whoever is inside, get his keys and leave, or at least take a very long walk down the hallway and back, ensuring he’d find the room empty a second time. But he doesn’t move, already captivated by the hushed words he doesn’t understand. There’s a feeling inside his gut that says he wants to hear this. Or that he needs to hear this. Or that he deserves to hear this. The lines between the motives are blurred, these days. He just feels he needs to stay. And so he does.

“What do you mean? You think he’s lied to everybody?”

“I dunno. Maybe. You can’t deny that it’s… Well, it’s quite a story.”

“Man, he can _morph_.”

“I’m not denying that. Does it look like I’m denying that? I’m just _saying_. Maybe he was chosen as… the scapegoat. Maybe he was fed orders all along…”

“ _Another_ government conspiracy theory? Fuck, man. You do know we _work_ for them, right?”

“Hey, I’m just _saying_. There are aliens walking around our earth. That we’re being taught to protect. By turning into animals. Is it so hard to believe Jake Berenson was just a boy chosen to sing a pretty, awe-inspiring tune for the world to lap up?”

“The things he says, man…”

“People lie. People lie all the time. After all, he’s just a kid. How likely is it that a _boy_ did all of that?”

“It’s a fantastic theory. But you’re full of shit, to be frank with you.”

“I’m just saying, man. His advice may be solid, but I honestly don’t think a kid like that would have been able to pull it off. I mean, he’s what? Twenty-one? Do you know what I was doing at twenty-one?”

“Nineteen. He’s only nineteen.”

There’s a long beat of silence. Jake lets go of the door and turns to walk away.

“Fucking shit.”

“Yeah. I know.”

_I’m just a man; I’m not a hero_

“Thank you for agreeing to have this interview with us, Mister Berenson.”

“It’s to help Cassie’s campaign, isn’t it?”

“Yes. Yes, of course. But she… uh… _we_ weren’t sure it would… uh… fit into your schedule…”

“What is it you need from me, Mister Harvey?”

“I… uh… I just need a few quotes from you to uh… Yes. Well. Firstly, how does it feel to be a hero?”

“I can’t answer that question.”

“I’m… Excuse me, but why not?”

“Because heroes don’t exist.”

“I’m-?”

“There are no heroes, only monsters who fought on the right side.”

The PR team is pissed off with him to the max by the time they’re done, but he feels strangely relieved. He’s told the truth for the first time in what seems like forever. .

_I. Don’t. Care._

"What are you doing in the closet, Sara?"

"I told Mom I’d finished my homework so she’d let me go to the mall with my friends. I haven’t even started it, yet."

"So now you’re missing Grandma’s birthday party."

"There are just a bunch of old people." A beat. A blush. A half-smile. "I’m nearly done."

"Okay, then."

"Jake?"

"I won’t tell."

"Uh… Could you… Help?"

"I-" Heartbeats. "Yeah. Sure. Uh… What are you doing?"

"We need to write a dumb story for Spanish class."

"I’m not sure how much help I’ll be…"

"No I just, like, need a plot."

"Oh. What do you need to write about?"

"A person who meets a geenie and gets three wishes. I don’t know what to make him wish for. What would you wish for? Jake? Jake?"

_We’ll carry on, we’ll carry on_

She doesn’t know whether to pretend not to see him, or whether to go up and say hello. They haven’t seen each other in over a year, simply because they have nothing to talk about. Their link was never direct, and now they honestly have nothing to link them together. They’d always been the strongest allies when they were working towards the goals they both wanted: world peace. And saving Jake. They’d achieved the first goal. They always failed at the second one.

Marco catches her eye and she gives a little wave that he returns. She can tell by the way his hand curls unnaturally that he’s known she’s there for a while and has been carefully avoiding her, too. A stunning girl Cassie is sure she’s seen in a recent movie - the one about the girl who accidentally marries her long-lost brother, perhaps? Cassie fell asleep in that one, sure, but she saw enough to almost recognise faces - comes along and slides an arm into Marco’s. He speaks to her, and a sly smile appears on his face. She’s glad and angry at the same time to note that it’s genuine.

And there’s the real reason she hasn’t found reasons to connect herself to Marco. He’s from before. She needs to be in the now and in the future. And she can’t do that by looking at him living his life, moved on from the war, and feeling guilty because she’s done the same.

Ronnie comes and slips his hand through hers, laughing at a mutual friend who beckons them over to the snacks table. Marco catches her eye again, and he nods this time. She nods back.

And then she turns around and walks away.

_And though you’re dead and gone, believe me, your memory will carry on_

“You were having nightmares again last night.”

Marco looks up from the magazine he’s reading and raises an eyebrow at his girlfriend. “You sure? Maybe I was just really invested in my dream.”

“Marco. You haven’t slept more than three hours in a month.”

He shrugs. “It’s this whole werewolf thing. Such a pain on my sleeping habits. It should even out, soon.”

“Marco.”

He sighs and tosses away the magazine. “What do you want me to say?” he asks in a drone.

Her lips thin. “That you’ll talk to somebody.” His eyebrows raise at once. “Not like that. Just… your mother. Or… or Jake…”

“I’m doing no such thing. And if you keep making silly suggestions, I’m not doing you, either,” he snaps.

She winces but folds her arms across her chest. Well, she tries to, anyway. For a moment, he’s distracted. “Why not Jake? He’s your best friend.”

“He was.”

“He still is! He’s over here almost more often than I am!”

Marco thinks of the boy he threw sand at in the sandpit. The boy who simply sat by his side for an entire night after his mother’s funeral. The boy who took every joke, insult, jibe and secret and absorbed it with a half-smile and an eyeroll. He can remember that boy. He wishes Jake could, too. Sometimes, there are glimpses. Sometimes. But Marco has learnt from extensive movie research that clinging to the sometimes appearances of ghosts will not make anything better.

“He’s not my best friend,” Marco mumbles. “Not the one I remember.”

_Will carry on_

“Do you remember this Christmas?”

“Oh my… That is the most hideous jumper I have ever seen… _Why_ did you let me wear that?”

“Because it made you happy. And it brings out your perm.”

“That is so horrible… Put it away…”

“No, I think I’ll frame this…”

“Steve Berenson, if you _dare_ , I swear I will tell your mother about the salad spoons!”

“Evil woman. Okay, okay! Look, it’s going back in the box.”

“Awww… this is the year we got Homer…”

“Look at what a little thing he was… Oh, look, Tom’s already much more interested in his action figure than the dog he begged for for over a year…”

“Oh, Tom.”

“Jake though… Look at this. Jake’s not even bothering with his other presents. He’s petting _Tom’s_ dog.”

“Let’s be honest - Homer was never Tom’s.”

“No… No, he wasn’t… I wonder…”

“What?”

“Did Jake really want Homer?”

“He _loved_ that dog. Right until the moment old Homer decided it was time to go.”

“No, I know that but… Did he want the dog, Jean? Did he really want that dog or… or… did he just see him lying, forgotten, on the carpet and feel responsible for him? Did he just…”

“Steve…”

“Did he just have too much… too much responsibility and too much love and he just couldn’t…”

“Steve. Steve. Shhh. Love, shh. That was Jake. That was always Jake.”

“Yeah. Was. It _was_ always Jake.”

_And though you’re broken and defeated, your weary widow marches on_

They’re lying on the deck of a yacht, staring at the star-spangled sky. The breeze that touches their skin lightly is warm and the air around them is silent but for the lapping waves. She hadn’t known Ronnie could sail. Not until that afternoon, when he’d surprised them for their anniversary. The moment is perfect. And that’s why she wants to cry on the inside.

“What’s bugging you, Cass?”

“Nothing. I’m just-”

“Cassie. Come on. Talk to me.”

She’s silent for a long while, her fingers curled into his. “I’m scared.”

“Of what? The water?”

She laughs. “No. I can just morph dolphin. Or whale. Or bird. No, Ronnie, I’m scared of you. Because I can’t morph to fix this.”

His hand tightens around hers. “Fix what, Cass?”

“I’m scared you’re going to ask me to marry you, one day,” she whispers, and there’s a catch in her voice she swallows quickly. “I’m…”

He pulls away but then forces himself to curl back towards her. “Don’t you want to get married?”

“I do. I do. I love you. I just… I don’t want to…”

“Oh.” He gets it. Of course he does. “Jake.”

Everything life-changing seems to start and end with Jake. A huge part of her heart and soul misses him and mourns for him every day. “Yeah. Jake.” Ronnie still holds her hand, and she cannot love him enough for understanding. “Do you know he asked me to marry him?” she blurts, suddenly. “Just before… the final battle. He said when it was all over he wanted to be with me. Wait a few years. Marry me.”

Ronnie is silent as he absorbs the information. “What did you say?” he finally asks. She can tell he’s a little bit afraid of the answer.

“I told him… I told him to wait a year. If after a year…”

“He didn’t want to wait?”

“He said he would. But he never came.”

“Oh. I see.”

“No,” she whispers and then rolls over so she can lean over him and look him in the eyes. “No, you don’t, and that’s what I’m scared of. I love you. But I can’t have you asking things if you don’t…”

“Then tell me, Cassie.” She can’t tell if his grip is tight with anger or support.

  
“I said ‘wait a year’ because I was scared of who he was becoming. Of who he already was. The war changed him, Ronnie. I’ve already told you that. But… But I didn’t say no. A part of me… A large part of me knew. As soon as we stepped onto that ship the Jake Berenson I knew would… And yet, I still said ‘yes’ in my heart. I still hoped that after a year he’d… Ronnie, in my heart and soul I married a dead man.”

He hesitantly strokes her hair. “Okay,” he murmurs. “I can’t… I can’t lie and say I’m just okay with that off the bat but… okay. I think I can… learn to understand that…” He’s silent for a long while, and she lies back down to give him space. “Do you still love him?”

“The Jake from school who saved people from getting bullied and who sat next to me in utter silence on the bus and who kissed me a thousand planets away from home? Yes. Always. But he’s…”

“A state away,” Ronnie says dully.

“No. That’s not my Jake. My Jake is dead. I just took a long time to realize it.”

“And now?”

She simply snuggles close to him in answer.

_Do or die, you’ll never make me_

_Because the world will never take my heart_

_Go and try, you’ll never break me_

_We want it all, we wanna play this part…_

_We’ll carry on._


End file.
